Coronado Middle School history teacher Jennifer King said that "something great" would happen for students that stopped by and visited with assistant librarian Anna Trusler. Pictured are: Jeramyah Juanes

The Indian Removal Act forced five tribes to give up their possessions and leave their homes in Southeastern United States and walk to Oklahoma. Estimates say between 2,000-6,000 of 16,542 relocated Cherokee died on the trip.

The Indian Removal Act forced five tribes to give up their possessions and leave their homes in Southeastern United States and walk to Oklahoma. Estimates say between 2,000-6,000 of 16,542 relocated Cherokee

When Jennifer King told her students to find out what member of the Coronado Middle School staff was Native American, she promised “something great” would happen for them. By this she meant a special privilege, or maybe a stick of gum. But the eighth-graders quickly learned that “something great” was really the privilege of getting to know more about assistant librarian Anna Trusler and her family history.

Trusler, 63, is three-quarters Native American, mostly Cherokee. She grew up in Tahlequah, Okla., where, she said, she didn’t know a white person until she was in high school. Though the soil around Tahlequah didn’t produce much, it grew an abundance of strawberries, and as a child she joined the other pickers.

“We’d stand in the road, and the farmer would come by and pick us up in his truck,” Trusler said.

Trusler can’t remember exactly when she learned that her ancestors had been part of the Trail of Tears, a forced migration by government officials from southeastern United States, including Florida and Georgia, to Oklahoma. Her great-aunt Kat, she said, was the family historian and had talked about the event from the time she was small.

Though she is unsure of the details, Trusler said her great-great-grandparents died on the trail, but her great-grandmother survived. Since her grandmother died giving birth to Trusler’s own mother, it was only through Aunt Kat that she was unable to learn more about her great-grandmother.

Trusler makes the lesson concrete for the students by showing them Cherokee darts made of a thistle found in Oklahoma and bound together with animal sinews. The darts, blown through a pipe, were accurate from 20 to 30 feet and were used for hunting small game.

The Trail of Tears came about as a result of The Indian Removal Act of 1830 under President Andrew Jackson.

The four students who took advantage of their history teacher’s offer all have some Native American in their backgrounds, as does King.

“It was beautiful,” said Jeramyah Juanes, speaking of the lands the people were removed from, “grassy and lush.” By contrast, he said, the land they were removed to was dry, and they were not allowed to take any of their possessions with them.

“Andrew Jackson was an Indian hater,” Viviana Gonzales said. With prompting from King and Trusler, she and Jeramyah, along with fellow students Matthew Kelly and Dominic Silva, describe what the Trail of Tears must have been like.

“They were tired and hungry.” “A lot of people died.” “Their shoes were worn out, so they walked barefoot.” “Some of them got blood infections.” “Some of them were too old or too weak to survive.”

All of this contrasts with Jackson’s image as a politician for “the common man,” King reminds them, and the Trail of Tears came about in spite of the fact that the Declaration of Independence states “All men are created equal.” Native Americans who went to Washington to protest the removal were ignored.

In general, the students don’t believe the same thing can happen now. Current laws and protections will prevent such a thing, they say. King says in the next unit, they will study the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution which abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection under the law and prohibited the government from denying citizens the right to vote.

All of the students are interested in learning more about their own ancestry. King plans to encourage this with lessons involving ancestry.com.